Shanghai Film Fest: 'The Night Watchman' Wins Golden Goblet for Best Film

Other awards at the festival were dominated by Cao Baoping's 'The Dead End.'

The Franco-Belgian film The Night Watchman directed by Pierre Jolivet won the Golden Goblet Award for best film at the Shanghai International Film Festival, while the Jury Grand Prize went to Polish director Jacek Lusinski for Carte Blanche.

The jury at the 18th edition of the festival in China's financial hub was headed by Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, whose most recent movie Leviathan won the best screenplay award at Cannes last year.

The event was overshadowed by a request by the festival for Korean guests to stay away because of an outbreak there of the deadly Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

A highlight for local movie fans was the opportunity to watch all six movies in the Star Wars saga on the big screen, with the first screening of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi in China.

This year, the festival received a record number of 2,096 film submissions from 108 countries, and screened 391 films 1,275 times on 51 screens in 45 movie theaters in 17 Shanghai districts, reaching an audience of over 300,000, and earning nearly $2.9 million in box office, organizers said.

The big winner at the Golden Goblet awards as the Chinese movie The Dead End which won best director for Cao Baoping and three of his cast, Deng Chao, Duan Yihong and Guo Tao, sharing the best actor award.

Best actress went to Krista Kosonen for The Midwife, while the best screenplay gong went to Patrick Tobin for Cake, directed by Daniel Barnz.

The 18th edition of the SIFF ran from June 13 to 21 and ended with a red carpet event.

Tomm Moore's Song of the Sea won the award for best animated film, while Oh Seung-uk'sThe Shameless won the outstanding artistic achievement award. Vladislav Opeliyants won best cinematography for his work on Nikita Mikhalkov'sSunstroke.

The best documentary film award went to The Verse of Us by Wu Feiyue and Qin Xiaoyu.